It’s becoming as synonymous with Christmas as turkey and stuffing and falling out with the in-laws, yes, we’re talking about the annual Yuletide appearance by the Sex Pistols Experience.

The ersatz punks were in town for the third year running, performing to a packed out Plymouth venue just days before Crimbo. And, for the second year in succession they brought brilliant Clash tribute London Calling with them. What a festive treat.

There’s something heart-warming, and indeed life affirming, about being in a confined space rammed with sweaty (mostly) middle aged folk jumping up and down, punching the air and each other, accidentally I may add, and singing along to timeless family favourites about anarchy and abortion.

The SPX, for the uninitiated, are the spot-on tribute to the band that 40 years ago turned the music world on its head. No, not Boney M, the Sex Pistols. And SPX recreate the experience of the Sex Pistols in all their snarling, snapping, scrofulous glory. Wonderful.

Kicking off with a fulminating I Wanna Be Me, and blitzing their way through 29, New York, No Feelings and everything else on the greatest one-off album of all time, and the B-sides, and of course the singles, and a section where Steve “Steve Jones” Clones, and “our dead junkie mate Kid “Sid Vicious” Vicious do spin-off hits such as Something Else and Silly Thing, the whole show is fast, furious and funny.

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Johnny “ Johnny Rotten” Rotter is perfect as the hunchbacked antichrist with green teeth. He loves Plymouth: “The nicest bunch of pikeys I’ve met,” he quipped. Then the razor-bladed and razor-tongued front man was telling drunk punters to stand by the wall because it was also plastered or pointing out how they looked like Timmy Mallet or Phil Mitchell and all the time while making eye contact, a stare that could give you a permanent shudder, and wearing a stylish tartan outfit, just like the bona fide Johnny did.

My only slight quibble, and this is not SPX’s fault, is that their set is limited by the number of songs the real band recorded. It means that every year you get pretty much the same selection. But then, the audience don’t seem to mind, and couldn’t wait to join in with the set closing trilogy of Anarchy in the UK, God Save the Queen and Holidays in the Sun. It was like listening to a choir made up of people who failed the audition for Sham 69. SPX ended with their cover of the Pistols’ cover of the Who’s Substitute. SPX may be a Pistols substitute, but there is no substitute for SPX.

Sex Pistols Experience play the Hub, Plymouth (Image: Esme Telford)

And there will never be a substitute for counterfeit Clash crew London Calling either. And there was also a lot of singalong and arms aloft and mad pogoing during their set. Where London Calling have the advantage over their SPX pals is that the Clash made six LPs (if you include the one without Mick Jones) and recorded more than 130 songs, a huge slice of them genuine rock n roll classics. So the band have plenty of material and several distinct Clash epochs to mimic.

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They’ve just toured the entire first LP and are about to hit the road for a 40 anniversary recreation of every song on sophomore album Give ‘em Enough Rope. So Reg “Joe Strummer” Shaw and his team included a fair few numbers from that waxing. After opening with London Calling (what else?) they burned through the second long player’s Safe European Home, Tommy Gun, English Civil War, and Stay Free. Dave “Mick Jones” Devonald honing up his wonderfully creamy Gibson sound in readiness to recreate the Clash’s more-guitars-per-square-inch-than-any-record-ever-made noise on the forthcoming tour.

London Calling perform at the Hub, Plymouth (Image: Esme Telford)

With Joe “Paul Simonon” Galtieri on superb form, and Shane “Topper” Tremlin, missing from the 2016 Plymouth gig, grabbing wide-eyed attention, and Reg as passionate and charismatic as ever, London Calling turned every last one of the Hub audience into Clash City Rockers, and you better leave town if you only want to knock ‘em.